Creating a Family Worship Night

Family worship night has easily become one of my favorite things we do as a family.

To us, Jesus is everything. He has given us hope, made our lives meaningful, and wants to have an intimate relationship with us. The fact that the God of the universe loves us and wants us to know Him personally blows my mind. It’s inevitable that we would want to spend time praising the One who knows every detail about us and loves us just the same.

Worship can be defined a lot of different ways. Really, most anything you do can be done as an act of worship to God when your heart is in the right place. When we started doing our “family worship night”, however,  our intention was just to set apart a block of time during the week to spend intentional time with the Lord.

As I mentioned in my post about legacies we want to leave our children, we want out kids to be raised as little worshipers of God.  We want them to truly love spending time with Jesus, and our hope is that creating an enjoyable space for Him in our schedule will foster that love in them.

There’s really not much to it, but here’s how we’ve made family worship night our own:

Pick a Time and Make it a Priority: We chose to make family worship night a weekly event on Tuesdays. We put it on the calendar and treat it like an important meeting. We rarely make other plans on Tuesdays and if something important does come up, we make sure to reschedule worship night because we want it to be a weekly priority.

Switch it up: Our kids are still small, so obviously, they’re not brainstorming ideas for worship night, but my hope is that someday each family member will be in charge of planning the night’s activities. For now, Albin and I switch off every week as the planner.

Be creative: At first, worship night consisted of us picking a certain number of songs and making a playlist on YouTube to sing through. After doing this week after week, however, we noticed we were falling into a rut of repeating the same songs and not getting much out of it. That’s when we started switching on and off for planning the night and it’s been much more meaningful this way. Here are some ideas for creative worship night activities:

• Drawing/painting: We put on some great worship and started coloring. We each picked a verse or a theme God was teaching us about at the time and drew a picture about it. This led to a great discussion about what God was doing in our lives.
• Invite some friends: It’s crazy how singing with your people about God can bring you even closer together. It’s even sweeter if  you can make a bonfire happen :).
• Live Stream: Some worship bands will cast live some nights so you just sing along as they play online. It’s a good way to hear new songs and be part of a “community” even if it’s over the internet. United Pursuit Band does this frequently and we love it.
• Prayer: Sometimes we just put on some music and pray about things on our hearts. When we were getting ready to move back to the U.S., we had so many things on our heart and minds causing us anxiety, so we just went through each one and prayed over them specifically. An hour later we both felt the load became much lighter.
• Podcasts: Sometimes getting to church just doesn’t happen (like when you have a puking toddler…) and sometimes it’s beneficial to hear from a different teacher- so we’ll listen to a teaching and then talk about it. We’ve recently loved this series on marriage and this sermon on God’s story for our lives.
• Reading to one another: Sometimes we’ll go through a chapter or a small book in the Bible and switch off reading to each other. Simple, but good for keeping you engaged.
• Serve someone: Lots of options here. Once we bought a bunch of cheeseburgers from McDonald’s and gave them to homeless people downtown. Another time, we invited neighbors we didn’t know well over for dinner. Another idea is to blast some worship music, go through your closets, and then drop off your clothes at a donation center.
• Make your own instruments: Love this one. Whether you have kids or not, using household items to create homemade instruments is hilarious and brings a whole new aspect to your worship night. Does spontaneous dancing follow? Yes.
• Put up some Christmas lights or light some candles: This isn’t really an activity, but more of creating an atmosphere. If I’m honest, Christmas lights just do it for me.
• Giving night: This one would be more fun with older kids, but I love this idea. Tell each family member they have a certain amount of money to give and have everyone research an organization or ministry they would like to donate their money to online. Discuss each donation and how each one contributes to the gospel. Pray over that ministry together.
• Notes of encouragement: Some nights it’s good to get out some stationary and have everyone write notes of encouragement to someone in their lives. It could be within the family or out- whatever you decide.
• Prophecy night: One of my personal favorites. Give everyone a card with a different family member’s name on it. Put on some music and have a time where each person can pray for the person on their card. If God puts something specific on their hearts for the other person, they can write it on the card. If not, they can put something encouraging or a verse they think is helpful on their card.
• New song night: Let’s be honest, worship has improved GREATLY over the last several years. There are some amazing bands out there and just searching for some new ones can really put a breath of fresh air into your music repertoire. Some recentish favorites are: In Over My Head and  No Longer Slaves by Bethel, Simple Gospel and Hidden by United Pursuit, Touch the Sky and One Thing by Hillsong, and Do It Again and Fullness by Elevation.

I can’t tell you how much worship night has blessed us. Quieting our hearts in the middle of the week and making time (without distraction) for Jesus is just a blessing. I truly believe He is totally honored by this every week and I know that He comes into our house and into our relationships when we invite Him like this.

Chains are broken. Anxiety loses its grip. Peace fills our souls. God is lifted up. There is no better way to spend our family time.

Hebrews 12: 28-29

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.